The Senate just voted 63-33 to invoke cloture on the standalone bill to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Yay.

Merry Christmas, wingnuts.

UPDATE: Republicans voting for repeal were  Brown, Collins, Kirk, Murkowski, Snowe, and Voinovich.

UPDATE DEUX: Vote on final passage will be around 3 PM Eastern today.

Thank you Senators Lieberman, Collins, Udall and Gillibrand.

Get it done this time, ‘kay?

Jeremy posted a list of the key Senators that need to be called:

Lisa Murkowski (R-AK): 202-224-6665
George Voinovich (R-OH): 202-224-3353
Olympia Snowe (R-ME): 202-224-5344
Richard Lugar (R-IN): 202-224-4814
Judd Gregg (R-NH): 202-224-3324
Scott Brown (R-MA): 202-224-4543
Kit Bond (R-MO): 202-224-5721
Mark Kirk (R-IL): 202-224-2854
Joe Manchin (D-WV): 202-224-3954

Especially Manchin, who doesn’t even know why the hell he voted the way he did.

What can be said about last night’s election that hasn’t been said about malignant tumors?  Okay, let’s look at the good, the bad and the ugly.

Good

Lexington, Kentucky, has an openly gay mayor!  His name is Jim Gray, and his election is a nice silver lining for a state which elected an ophthalmologist with a distaste for the Civil Rights Act to represent them in the United States Senate.  Also, the new Congressman from RI-1 is Providence’s mayor David Cicilline, who is also openly gay.  And perhaps sweetest, Barney Frank beat back his opposition, Sean Bielat, who had inexplicably been endorsed by GOProud, and retained his seat in the House.  In all, 106 openly gay candidates were elected around the country last night.

NOM spent a ton of money trying to get rid of the Democratic governor of New Hampshire, John Lynch — they think he is terrible because he signed the marriage equality law there — but voters there gave Lynch an unpredecented fourth term in office.

California has a Democratic governor again in Jerry Brown, and Meg Whitman is $141 million poorer.  So that’s funny.  Tom Tancredo will decidedly not be the governor of Colorado.  Sexist, anti-gay wingnut freak Carl Paladino lost, lost, LOST in his bid to become governor of New York; that job is for Andrew Cuomo, thanks.

House:  Democrat Loretta Sanchez squeaked out a victory in California, thank goodness.  New Orleans is back in Democratic hands, though the Republican who lost was probably the most decent guy on that side of the aisle.  Marcy Kaptur is still with us in Ohio; her challenger, Rich Iott, who like, dresses up in Nazi garb or something on Saturdays, is filling out job applications today.

Senate:  At least we still have the Senate.  Carly Fiorina is a loooooser; Barbara Boxer keeps her job.  Democrats hold Connecticut, while sending wrestling wingnut Linda McMahon back to find a different job.  Christine O’Donnell, of course, will not be the Senator of anything, ever; that job is for Chris Coons.  Harry Reid brought it back to defeat Sharron Angle, which has to make wingnuts insane.  One of the LGBT community’s staunchest allies, Kirsten Gillibrand, has been elected to a full term in the Senate, and Chuck Schumer’s still with us too.  Also, Joe Manchin pulled it out in West Virginia.

Those are the good things from last night.  Now…

Bad/Ugly

A majority of Iowans, thanks to the Religious Right, apparently are illiterate when it comes to the role of the judiciary, having ousted three of the Supreme Court judges who granted same-sex couples the long overdue right to marry.  The judiciary, of course, is not intended to be run by partisans, but don’t expect anything short of a preschool-level understanding of civics from groups like the National Organization for Marriage and the Family Research Council, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars that could have been spent feeding impoverished children on hurting gay families in the state.  Silver lining there, though:  if you’ll remember, the Iowa Supreme Court decision was unanimous, which means that seven judges voted for it.  Regardless of who gets those jobs, we still have a majority on the court.

Jan Brewer has now been elected as Arizona’s governor.  They’re workin’ real hard to make sure everybody knows Arizona as the Alabama of the Southwest, aren’t they?  The proposition to legalize marijuana went down in California, continuing California’s pattern of doing really good things and really bad things, all at the same time, when they go to the polls.

Senate:  Welcome wingnut senators Marco Rubio in Florida, Mark Kirk in Illinois — we’ll get that seat back easily, by the way — , Dan Coats in Indiana, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, and welcome back the biggest yokel in the Senate, Jim DeMint, who somehow pulled out a massive win over his handpicked opponent, Alvin Greene.  Sadly, Russ Feingold lost his job, to pave the way for new wingnut Ron Johnson in Wisconsin.

And the House.  Oh, the House.  Enjoy wingnuts, all y’all who thought voting To Teach Democrats A Lesson was a good idea.  Thanks for taking the stalemate in Washington up nine or ten notches.  It’s not like government is supposed to do anything, is it?  My favorite Congressman, Alan Grayson, lost his job last night, due to the confusion and stupidity of voters in his district.  Michele Bachmann won again, proving that district is likely one of the most frightening in the nation when it comes to reading comprehension, etc.  Virginia Foxx is also still with us in North Carolina, so that will continue to make for hilarious television.

Still too close to call: Michael Bennet (D) or Ken Buck (Wingnut) for Senate in Colorado?  Kinda scary.  Mark Dayton (D) or Tom Emmer (OMG) for governor of Minnesota?  Scarier.

Just funny: The wingnuts of Oklahoma have overwhelmingly chosen to make English their official language, which means those voters have a LOT of basic grammar to study, and they’ve also chosen to ban Shari‘a law within their borders.  So, um.  Did not know that was a threat!  Also, Tennessee has now enshrined in its Constitution the God-giv’n right to hunt and fish, as if that was somehow threatened.

Anyway.  That’s what I find significant from last night’s election.  What are you happy/sad/enraged by from last night?

(Weekly Column)

Picture: Me lifting my own luggage at Miami International Airport

It was once a speculative clich?© to say that rabidly anti-gay individuals were actually closeted, self-loathing homosexuals. But thanks to an avalanche of hypocrites, the notion is quickly becoming a truism.

Last month, the nation alternately cackled and cringed when virulently homophobic “researcher” George Rekers was photographed at Miami International Airport with an attractive hustler he met on RentBoy.com. The good doctor, who had testified in court against LGBT people adopting children, said he only hired the young escort to “lift his luggage”.

Before the laughter over the Rekers ruckus subsided, another anti-gay phony was unmasked for his baloney. Activist Mike Rogers outed Congressman Mark Kirk, (R-Il) after the closet case voted against the repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell. According to Rogers:

“Kirk voted against repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, despite his being a closeted gay man in the military. As a Commander in the Navy Reserves, Kirk has voted to keep a policy that if he were investigated under he would be tossed.”

Prior to his unconscionable vote, Kirk (pictured)had a relatively respectable record on LGBT issues. However, in his bid for the U.S. Senate, Kirk veered to the right, which included posing as a homophobe. Now that he has been exposed as a fraud, one wonders if the Tea baggers will still consider him their cup of tea.

Another maxim that appears to be accurate is the one that says, “those who have genuine family values never utter the words “family values.”

Seriously, how bored with your spouse, dissatisfied with your life, and spiritually empty do you have to be to unctuously parade your family as a prop on the public stage?

The most recent lowlife squirming under the family values banner is Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) who announced that he would resign from Congress because he had an affair with a woman on his staff. He follows in the footsteps of Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.). When will voters finally wise up to these religious racketeers who sell a morality mirage?

Just as gay-obsessed anti-gay activists are often gay, and holier-than-thou politicians are likely to be having sex with everyone but their spouses, one should also be leery of nations prone to attacking their LGBT citizens. While these countries pose as beacons of the biblical banner, their professions of piousness often mask moral mayhem. It seems that almost every anti-gay nation is an authoritarian, cesspool of corruption.

Jamaica, for example has been called one of the most homophobic lands on earth. The island’ Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, said he would not have an openly gay person in his cabinet. Yet, it appears he, and nearly every other politician in Jamaica, is in cahoots with local mafia dons who deal in death and drugs.

A story in Tuesday’ New York Times discusses this unseemly “arrangement”:

In fact, money has flowed into those communities for decades, thanks to an arrangement in Jamaica in which politicians and dons share power. Through extortion and the drug trade, the dons provide security, and by steering contracts and other pork to the neighborhoods, the politicians count on the continued loyalty of voters.

Where are all the outspoken fundamentalists who ferociously condemn gays and make a big show about Jamaica’ values? We keep hearing how this island is a pristine “Christian Nation”, but where are the Christians when you need them to stand up to endemic corruption?

It seems these self-righteous cowards attack defenseless sexual minorities, while turning a blind eye to the most sordid transgressions of scripture. While the epidemics of murder and theft genuinely affect their families — gay people do not. Yet, the misled masses in Jamaica choose to focus on a non-issue like homosexuality, while disregarding factors that have kept their children mired in poverty and pain.

Jamaica is not alone in using LGBT people as scapegoats to distract the public from naked political power grabs. Zimbabwe’ brutal dictator, Robert Mugabe, (pictured) practically wrote the playbook on using gays as political pawns when he once said they were worse than pigs and dogs. Uganda’ president Yoweri Musevini has clung to power for twenty-four years and uses gay people to sidetrack citizens who might otherwise be upset that he has squelched democratic reform. In Northern Ireland, anti-gay conservative parliament member, and the 58-year-old wife of the Prime Minister, Iris Robinson, had an affair with a 19-year-old male lover.

While being gay is normal and natural, homophobia is not. It is often a sickness or a deliberate distraction designed to deceive the na?Øve. And, nations with leaders that are homophobic often scream “perversion” as a smoke and mirrors diversion. It is time people woke up and realized that when someone is rabidly anti-gay they usually want you to look the other way.